(Medical Xpress)—The genetic malady known as Fragile X syndrome is the most common cause of inherited autism and intellectual disability. Brain scientists know the gene defect that causes the syndrome and ...

A new brain imaging study of dyslexia shows that differences in the visual system do not cause the disorder, but instead are likely a consequence. The findings, published today in the journal Neuron, provide important insigh ...

UCLA neuroscientists discovered that statins, a popular class of cholesterol drugs, reverse the learning deficits caused by a mutation linked to a common genetic cause of learning disabilities. Published ...

Johns Hopkins researchers report the successful use of a form of MRI to identify what appears to be a key biochemical marker for cognitive impairment in the brains of people with multiple sclerosis (MS). In follow-up experiments ...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health have identified a compound that dramatically bolsters learning and memory when given to mice with a Down syndrome-like condition on the day ...

Advancements over the last 10 years in understanding intellectual disability (ID, formerly mental retardation), have led to the once-unimaginable possibility that ID may be treatable, a review of more than 100 studies on ...

Down syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is the leading cause of genetically defined intellectual disability. In the brain, Down syndrome results in alterations in the connections between neurons and a reduction ...

A potential new therapeutic strategy for treating Fragile X syndrome is detailed in a new report appearing in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry, from researchers led by Dr. Lucia Ciranna at University of Catania in Ita ...

University of California-Irvine neurobiologists have discovered a protein complex in neurons that is essential to long-term memory formation and is also corrupted in the brains of people with some developmental disabilities ...

Researchers at Children's National Medical Center have found that a cholesterol-lowering statin drug appears to be safe in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and may improve learning disabilities, including verbal ...

Can't calculate a tip or even balance your checkbook? Take heart; maybe you can blame your brain - specifically, the parietal cortex in the top back part of the head. And it could be a problem that has roots not in a failed ...

Readers whose mother tongue is Arabic have more challenges reading in Arabic than native Hebrew or English speakers have reading their native languages, because the two halves of the brain divide the labor differently when ...

Learning disability

In the United States and Canada, the terms learning disability and learning disorder (LD) refer to a group of disorders that affect a broad range of academic and functional skills including the ability to speak, listen, read, write, spell, reason, organize information, and do math. The disorders are neurological in origin and reflect information processing problems in the brain.

As the term is generally understood in the US and Canada, learning disabilities are not indicative of intelligence level. Rather, people with learning disabilities have trouble performing specific types of skills or completing tasks if left to figure things out by themselves or if taught in conventional ways.

In the UK, terms such as specific learning difficulty (SpLD), dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia are used to cover the type and range of learning difficulties referred to in the United States and Canada as "learning disabilities". In the UK, the term "learning disability" usually refers to a range of conditions that are almost invariably associated with more severe cognitive impairments; the term therefore generally is taken to be indicative of low intelligence in the UK.

A learning disability cannot be cured or fixed; it is a lifelong issue. With the right support and intervention, however, children with learning disabilities can succeed in school and go on to successful, often distinguished careers later in life.